A virtual universe (VU) is an interactive simulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface. Users inhabit and interact in the VU via avatars, which are a user's representation of himself or herself. Typically avatars can be representative of a human user, however, avatars may be used to represent any number of entities. These representations can be in the form of a three-dimensional model, a two-dimensional icon, a text construct, a user screen name, etc. Although there are many different types of VUs, there are several features many VUs generally have in common. These features include, for example,                Shared Space: the VU allows many users to participate at once;        Graphical User Interface: the VU depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D “cartoon” imagery to more immersive 3D environments;        Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time;        Interactivity: the VU allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content. Interactivity may also include the ability to move and to touch and/or manipulate an object in the VU;        Persistence: the VU's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in;        Socialization/Community: the VU allows and encourages the formation of social groups such as teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.; and        Communication: the VU allows users to speak in a natural language and be detected by other users within a proximity radius by using proximity based chat.        
With the proliferation of VUs and 3D Internet, the number of ways that avatars can interact with one another has increased. Now, instead of being limited to communication between one or more users, users have the opportunity to interact with automated machine driven avatars. Automated avatars may be used for a number of purposes such as, e.g., hospitality greeters, sales, service, etc.
Automated avatars may be instructed to interact the same way with all users' avatars. For example, a hospitality greeter may be programmed to automatically say hello to every avatar that comes within a predefined proximity of the hospitality greeter. Similarly, a sales avatar may be programmed to automatically initiate a one on one conversation with an avatar that is chatting within a predefined radius of the sales avatar. While this provides some level of automated interaction, the type of interaction is generic and does not engage the user of the avatar.